Ephesians 6:10-20
August 25, 2024
When I was a kid, my neighborhood friends
and I played all sorts of games. We played the games you expect like Hide and
Seek, Mother May I, Red Rover, Red Rover, Kick the Can, Tag, and others. But
there were times when if the regular games didn’t appeal to us, we would make
up our own. I was the oldest of the girls on my street, so sometimes I could
convince the others to play a game that had a storyline to it, probably based
on a book that I was reading at the time. I don’t remember most of these
made-up games, but I do distinctly remember a time when I convinced all of us
to play a game where we pretended we were a family of orphans in a terrible war
– probably World War II – but we had information that was important to the
allies, and we decided we must get our knowledge to the right people. So, our
game followed this storyline which also included elements of Tag and Hide and
Seek and just running as fast as we can, and it ranged all over our street. We
ran and crawled and raced, creating different aspects of the story as we went
along. But in the end we were caught. Yes, even in a game that we created with
a storyline that I devised, we were caught. And just before we were called in
for dinner and homework and bedtime, we bravely marched with our hands behind
our heads toward our fates, heroes even unto death. (looooooooong pause) And
then we had to go home.
I’m sure I got this idea from a book
I was reading, and I know that we all believed that the whole idea, especially
our decision to end it the way we did, was romantic and dramatic and sadly
wonderful. It would be many years before I understood that real war is not
romantic. It’s not sadly wonderful. A real war does make orphans and widows and
widowers. It destroys lives and demolishes creation. There is nothing romantic
about a real war, even wars that are fought for all the right reasons. It is
still deadly and destructive and terrible.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th
President of the United States, and a military man of honor, once said, “Every
gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is
spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of
its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
War, even when it may be necessary,
exacts a high price on the people who fight it and the people who do their best
just to survive it. I tell you all this because it means that I enter these
verses from the letter to the Ephesians carefully and cautiously. It is too
easy to read these words with the idea of conquering. My parents were raised in
that mindset. They must be soldiers for Christ and conquer all peoples in his
name. To my understanding this militant, warlike language has
been used as a justification for a mindset that has done incredible harm in our
missions, in our relations to other faith groups, and with other
Christians.
But
I realize that to see these verses from Ephesians only through my cultural and
contextual bias does not do justice to or give the full picture of what Paul
wanted them to convey.
Most
likely the letter that we read as being addressed to the church in Ephesus was
an encyclical. This meant that Paul wrote it to be read at a variety of
churches in different places. I assume from this that each church hearing these
words was facing the similar struggle of being believers in a world that was
hostile to them.
I can imagine that being a follower
of Jesus in that time and context must have felt like living in a war zone.
Your beliefs would be considered anti-government, anti-empire, anti-social
norms, anti-everything. Just professing your faith would have set you up for
persecution, real persecution as in you will be put to death for your
profession. I suspect that being a follower was to both be and feel embattled.
So Paul uses this. He uses imagery and ideas that would have meant something to
a people being constantly battered for their faith.
And
as Paul often does in his rhetoric, he uses an idea, and then redefines it. He
turns it on its head. This is evident in this passage. He redefines the uniform
of a Roman soldier which would have been a familiar sight to the common folk at
that time. I learned from a history professor friend once that the Roman
soldier was as much a police officer, as he was a member of the armed forces.
So as we see police officers and police cars on a regular basis, doing their
job at keeping order, the people of Ephesus and in other places would have seen
Roman soldiers. The uniform of a Roman
soldier was well known.
But
instead of a belt that would be used to secure a uniform of war, this belt that
believers are encouraged to put on is the belt of truth. The breastplate, that
metal piece which would have covered a soldier’s toga protecting the chest, is
the breastplate of righteousness. Shoes would have been worn for protection as
the soldiers marched, but the shoes Paul encourages should be worn not for
marching but to make the followers of Jesus “ready to proclaim the gospel of
peace.” The shield a soldier carried, as
I understand it, would have covered not only the soldier carrying it, but about
2/3’s of the soldier next to him. The follower of Jesus must also carry a
shield, but this shield will be the shield of faith. The helmet, the head
covering, will be the helmet of salvation. All of this describes battle armor
not meant for attack but for defense. Paul does describe one item which could
be a weapon, the sword. But the sword the disciples and the church should carry
is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
And
all this armor is used, not to defeat people, “enemies of blood and flesh,” but
to stand firm “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic
powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places.” The Greek for “stand firm” could also be translated as “stand
steadfast.”
If
the kingdom is in our midst, right now, right here, then there are also forces
of evil working against it. Those of us who believe, who have felt the power of
Christ, must fight against those forces that threaten the kingdom. Paul puts it
on a cosmic scale. This isn’t about neighbors who don’t like us or governments
who want to shut us down. This is about the evil which seeks to infiltrate and
destroy God’s goodness. The evil one may be working through the neighbors and
the governments, the hate groups, the factions and radical splinter groups, but
it is a cosmic battle just the same.
It
is easy to find evidence that this is true. You can’t watch the news or surf
the net and not see the prevalence of evil and its desperate consequences. Yet
I wonder sometimes if the real battle that is being fought is within. Within
me.
I
deplore the violence in the world around me. I am angered by it, outraged by
it. I despise the casual cruelty that some people feel is acceptable, whether
that cruelty is revealed through actions or through words. And yet, as much as
I despise all the above, I also find myself growing numb to it. Or if not numb,
hopeless. I turn off the news because I can’t bear to listen. I turn away from
headlines, because it is just too much. I feel hopeless, helpless, and tired. I
despair and ask, well what can I do? What can any of us do?
It
seems to me that’s the real battle that needs to be fought. That attitude of
feeling powerless, of feeling useless. What can I do? Nothing? Oh well. That’s
the evil one infiltrating my mind and my heart and my soul. Yet that goes
against what Paul is encouraging the church in Ephesus and so many other
churches to think and believe. In all the pieces of armor that Paul describes
there’s no wristlet of apathy, no amulet of indifference. They have no place in
the whole armor of God.
If
we’re really going to take this passage from Ephesians seriously and put on the
whole armor of God, if we’re going to see ourselves as fighting a spiritual
battle and being the warriors for the peace of God, then we can’t just throw up
our hands at one more shooting, at one more terrible act of violence and say,
“This is terrible but what can anyone do? The world is going to hell in a
handbasket. But I don’t see how it’s going to change anytime soon.” I’ve heard
these words from others. I’ve said them. I’ve claimed defeat before I’ve even
gone to battle.
It’s
easy, too easy, to stop caring, to become numb to the evil in the world, to believe
ourselves immune to the powers and principalities that work to destroy God’s
kingdom in our presence. And when I take that easy way, I think that evil wins
just a little more ground. The real battle is not letting that happen. Standing
strong in the Lord invokes the power of resistance. I think of civil rights
activists who faced guns and high powered water hoses and dogs but stood their
ground, not fighting back but not giving in. Standing strong in the Lord is not
about demonizing those who disagree with us. It’s not about sticking it to
others before they can stick it to us. Standing strong in the Lord is not about
violence, in our actions or our words. Standing strong in the Lord is about
standing up to the forces of evil, about using the power of love – which really
is a superpower – to defeat that which seeks to harm and destroy.
And
finally it is about doing what Paul describes in these last verses, verses that
can get lost amid the imagery of battle. Paul encourages the Ephesians and all
who hear and read this letter to pray in the Spirit at all times in every
prayer and supplication. Pray in the Spirit. Pray at all times. What does
praying in the Spirit mean, what might it look like? It seems to me that
praying in the Spirit is not just about listing our hopes and desires, our
wants, our needs. Praying in the Spirit means being willing to have our minds
and hearts changed. Praying in the Spirit helps us to stand strong in the Lord,
to resist the forces of evil, but it also helps us see when we fall away, when
we are wrong, when we begin to proclaim not the gospel of peace, but division.
Paul
reminds us that praying in the Spirit lies at the heart of our standing strong,
our steadfast resistance to evil and its wily ways. Pray and pray and pray some
more. Prayer reminds us that the power of love is always stronger than the
power of hate. Prayer gives us courage to proclaim the gospel of peace. Prayer
opens our minds and hearts to the power of the Holy Spirit. Prayer keeps our
hope burning brightly. Pray, pray, pray, because as Paul states, he must speak
and so must we.
Let
all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”
Amen.
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